Today the spotlight is on an idyllic spring farmyard wedding, complete with pastel colour scheme, picturesque village church, rustic bunches of classic roses, pretty gypsophila and the sunshine yellow tulips of dreams.
Following the church ceremony, a real working farm was just the place to celebrate tying the knot for our lovely. It doesn’t get much more rustic than that! When Tash and Matt were planning their dream spring day they wanted somewhere that meant a lot to them as a couple. So there really was no question when the groom’s parents’ own beautiful farm, Rowland Hill, came up as an option, even if it’s not usually a wedding venue! And it just goes to show that you don’t always have to pick from a list of the usual suspects!
You’ll want the low down on this Pinterest-worthy farmyard party, featuring a lot of handmade props and a working tractor! A real family affair, the bride and groom had all of their lovely relatives pitching in to help decorate the farm with pops of pale pink, lemon yellow and baby blue and, to top everything off, a giant hay bale pyramid! Now, that’s certainly something you don’t see every day!
With images by Paul Hawkett Photography
Proposal
Tash says
: We got engaged on the 28th December 2017. Matt completely surprised me as we were walking over Holme Moss! It was completely deserted and we were knee deep in snow. The views were stunning and the best part was that we could celebrate with our families straight after.Setting
We got married on April 13th 2019 at St. Martin’s Church, Yapham. The reception was held at Matt’s parent’s farm, Rowland Hill, Yapham. We always wanted a spring wedding and it was a good time to have it, with it being one of the less busy times of year on the farm.
We chose the venue because it was so sentimental to us both. Having it at Matt’s childhood family home was perfect and it allowed us free reign to create our dream wedding!
Theme
We chose a rustic farm theme as we have always loved the rustic look. We thought the theme would fit well with the farm and the traditional pole tent. We chose a pastel colour scheme because our wedding was held in spring. We chose pastel yellow, pastel blue and pastel pink as our main colours.
Dress
It is a tradition in my family for the grandma to purchase the wedding dress, and so my grandma and parents bought mine for me! It was from Dotty Bridal in Holmfirth, and by Pronovias. I went around two or three dress shops with my mum before I found the one. I’d always wanted long sleeves and a backless dress. I knew when my mum saw the dress and cried, and then I cried, that it was the one!
Groomsmen
Matt wore a navy two tone suit and dark brown shoes from Reiss. Our ushers wore a navy three piece suit from Next with a pastel yellow tie, pocket square and buttonhole flower. Our dads wore matching suits and our grandads wore matching ties.
Bridesmaids
The bridesmaids wore pastel yellow dresses from ASOS. My sister helped make our nieces’ flower girl tutus for the wedding and they wore cute long sleeved leotards with them.
Beauty
Charlotte Mallinder did all of our makeup on the morning of the wedding; myself, my mum and our bridesmaids. We absolutely loved our makeup! Charlotte was the most friendly and kind makeup artist, who made time to get to know everyone and had a smile on her face despite the 5am start! Mark Lee Hairdressers also did our hair that the morning.
Transport
We hired a black and ivory Rolls Royce 1950 Silver Wraith to collect myself, mum and dad from the KP Club to take us to the church. After the wedding, Matt and I went for a drive up to Givendale in the Yorkshire Wolds.
Meanwhile, our guests were picked up in a matching, open-top 1962 AEC Renown vintage bus and were transported to Rowland Hill Farm.
Photographer
Our photographer was Paul Hawkett. He was brilliant! Not only did he help run the day but he got on really well with the ushers and bridesmaids, and nothing was too much for him. We would recommend Paul to anyone and everyone! Paul always had a smile on his face, he was polite and had a great sense of humour. We absolutely love our wedding photos.
Videographer
Martin Waring was our wedding videographer. He was fantastic! He managed to capture all of the key moments of the day and just quietly got on with his job. He created an amazing wedding highlights video, as well as a full wedding video which we love. We would recommend him to all.
Styling
I carried a rustic country bouquet of flowers made by Mouse House Floral Design in Pocklington. Caroline was so friendly and patient with me while I was choosing my bridal bouquet. It was everything I had ever dreamt of and more! My bouquet included gypsophila, white ranunculus, white tulips, eucalyptus, blue eryngium, lemon roses, white cheerfulness, white alpec roses and pale pink avalanche roses.
We bought our flowers for the church, village hall and marquee reception from a flower outlet. We used very similar flowers to the bridal bouquet. We also used green ivy from the farm as centrepieces for the wooden tables, along with candles.
We used a lot of styling props such as rustic ladders, large logs, lanterns, festoon lights, cold drinks buckets, watering cans, straw bales, a real John Deer tractor, fairy lights lining the garden stone wall, and lots of vintage crates and pallets. We had a marshmallow toasting station and a beer wheelbarrow. We also had a Polaroid photo guest book station for guests to have fun with and a Polaroid photo timeline of our relationship pegged to a pallet. We had a tree swing also decorated with ivy, and had blankets and flip flops on offer for guests. We also had a board dedicated to family we wish could be there.
We used the Brides Up North Pinterest boards for inspiration and ideas. We then created and printed out our own scrapbook full of little ideas that we’d gathered!
Cake
Nat from My Little Cakery made our gorgeous three-tier, rustic semi-naked wedding cake. We had two salted caramel tiers and a zesty lemon flavour tier. All of the guests loved it!
In keeping with the rustic theme, we put our cake on a barrel cake stand, alongside a cheese table where we styled the various cheeses on log slices.
Favours
As favours we gave our guests jars of Rowland Hill Farm homemade raspberry and blackcurrant jam with a rustic hessian top.
Dining
Saunts were our wedding caterers. Lesley was brilliant from start to finish, nothing was ever too much. We had sandwich platters on offer for our guests at the village hall, next to the church. Then on arrival to the farm guests were provided with welcome drinks and amazing canapés including Yorkshire cheese rarebit bites, smoked duck thai filo tartlets, pigs in blankets with cider and sage glaze, sticky barbecue pork belly piece, smoked salmon and cream cheese profiteroles, and sweet potato, coriander and red onion samosas with mango puree.
For the mains of the wedding breakfast we served Givendale sirloin carved at the table, with Yorkshire puddings, horseradish and mustard sauce along with roast potatoes and seasonal vegetables. The vegetarian option was a goats cheese, roasted pepper, aubergine and courgette filo parcel with a basil and tomato sauce, and our vegan option was Butternut and wild mushroom wellington, herb veloute served with seasonal vegetables and potatoes.
We then had an assiette of three desserts; a sticky toffee pudding with butterscotch sauce and chantilly cream, hot milk chocolate tart, orange crème chantilly and orange gel, and an apple and plum crumble with caramelised toffee apples and class crème anglaise.
The wine was a selection of French and Italian red and white that Matt’s parents brought back from France and Italy.
Entertainment
We hired South West Band because we loved their acoustic style, flexibility to play any genre of music, their willingness to learn our first dance song, and their RnB acoustic set! They also did DJ slots in between the band sets.
Special touches
We designed a marshmallow toasting station surrounding the fire pits and Matt built a tree swing, which we decorated with ivy, on an ancient pine tree. My mum and I decorated several chalkboards, the bottle openers, the bar menu, our polaroid photo station, the ‘borrow-a-blanket’ station, and the church pew ends ourselves. Our parents and friends also helped with numerous decorating jobs around the farm, village hall and church. We also made homemade signs giving directions for around the farm. So you could say it really was a team effort!
Thanks to
So want to thank so many of our suppliers! Isaac Poad supplied us with their No. 86 Golden Ale and All Four Yorkshire Red Ale, as Matt’s dad’s farm supplies them with barley for their brewery.
Steph and Adam from Rustic Rose created and provided lots of unique elements for the wedding, including the Order Of Service boards, table plan board, welcome sign, a rustic ladder, an old barrel for the wedding cake, and a large ‘Matt and Tasha’s Wedding’ sign for the end of the drive. They also helped decorate the rustic log stack, the marquee, the swing and even cut ‘T + M’ into the large log with their chainsaw.
Florida Marquees supplied us with their Celeste Vintage Pole Marquee, as well as the rustic tables, chairs, lighting, walkways and posh loos! Our parents hugely helped us with all of this too and we cannot thank them enough.
We would say we recommend our venue to another couple, but obviously it’s Matt’s family farm! It’s a working mixed arable and pig farm at the moment, but maybe in the future it would be the perfect wedding venue for other couples looking for a rustic farm wedding!
Best bit
Our favourite part of the day was the wedding ceremony at the tiny Yapham Church and actually getting married in front of our nearest and dearest family and friends. My favourite part was the vows and Matt says his favourite part was seeing me walk down the aisle. We both found this the most emotional and happiest part of the day, marrying my soulmate after being together for more than seven years.
Close second favourite was climbing up the straw bale pyramid! Matt’s friend of over 20 years, Harry, and Matt’s dad helped us build a four tier straw bale pyramid using his forklift tractor. I have always loved creating human pyramids and so when we saw the straw bale pyramid idea on Pinterest we had to have it at our wedding! We really tried to be unique with our design. It looks amazing on the photos but the top bale felt a little unstable and it was quite scary standing up there!
One of our favourite parts in the evening was giving out sparklers to all of our guests and walking down the festoon light lined walkway into the field.
Honeymoon
We went to New York and the Bahamas for our honeymoon. We have never been to New York before and have always dreamt about swimming with the pigs in the Bahamas as well as stroking and swimming with the nurse sharks. It really was paradise.
Advice
My top tip for other Brides Up North would be to enjoy every second of planning your wedding day, as when the day comes it flies by far too quickly and you don’t want it to end! It really will be the best day of your life! We really enjoyed having 30 minutes to ourselves in the vintage car after the ceremony. It gave us time to take it all in, and I would recommend this to everyone.
